WASHINGTON The Trump administration says it will bypass 37 environmental and other laws to expedite construction of a 15-mile-long section of President Donald Trumps planned wall along the U.S.-Mexico border seemingly removing any doubt about whether the the wall will harm the environment.

The waiver, announced Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security, applies to the construction of several wall prototypes, access roads and 14 miles of replacement fencing near San Diego, a Homeland Security official told HuffPost.

DHS has been granted authority to exempt itself from all legal requirements it determines necessary to construct barriers and roads under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Between 2005 and 2008, the department invoked that authority five times, according to the agency.

DHS noted in its Tuesday release that in fiscal year 2016 the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended more than 31,000 illegal aliens and confiscated more than 9,000 pounds of marijuana and more than 1,300 pounds of cocaine in its San Diego Sector. It described the sector, which includes some 60 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, as an area of high illegal entry for which there is an immediate need to improve current infrastructure and construct additional border barriers and roads.

Among the lengthy list of laws it will waive are the National Environmental Policy Act a 1969 law requiring federal agencies to complete environmental assessments of their projects the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Conservation Act and the Clean Air Act.It is likely a sign of how the administration, which has worked swiftly to roll back a slew of environmental regulations, plans to fulfill Trumps pledge for a great, great wall on the nearly 2,000-mile southern border.

Despite sidestepping these laws, DHS is committed to responsible environmental stewardship and will continue to assess potential impacts, coordinate with relevant stakeholders, and to the extent possible, offset or mitigate potential impacts, department spokesman Carlos Diaz said in an email to HuffPost.

Trump wants to scare people into letting him ignore the law and endanger wildlife and people, Brian Segee, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. Trumps wall is a divisive symbol of fear and hatred, and it does real harm to the landscape and communities.

A study by the center in May found that 93 threatened, endangered and candidate speciescould be negatively affected by the proposed border wall,including jaguars, ocelots, Mexican spotted owls, Mexican gray wolves and Quino checkerspot butterflies.

Driven by an anti-immigrant agenda, the Trump administration is callously putting construction of an environmentally and culturally destructive border wall above water resources for communities on both sides of the border, federally protected lands, clean air, and the lives of hundreds of endangered species all while turning a blind eye to the vital relationships of cross-border communities and our longstanding values as a nation, she said in a statement.

So far, very little funding has been secured for the walls estimated cost of upwards of $70 billion a tab Trump insists Mexico will eventually pay for.

WASHINGTON, July 30 (Reuters) – Republicans on Sunday urged President Donald Trumps new chief of staff John Kelly to rein in the chaos within the White House on Monday but said the retired Marine Corps general will be challenged to assert control.

In his first six months in office, Trump has upended White House convention with a loose decision-making style and an open-door policy to his Oval Office for advisers, both internal and external. Infighting among his senior staff has become bitter and public.

Hes going to have to reduce the drama, reduce both the sniping within and reduce the leaks, and bring some discipline to the relationships, Karl Rove, a Republican strategist and former White House adviser to George W. Bush, said on Fox News Sunday.

Trump announced Kelly would replace his embattled chief of staff Reince Priebus at the end of a particularly chaotic week that saw his first legislative effort – healthcare reform – fail in Congress.

He (Trump) is in a lot of trouble. This week was the most tumultuous week weve seen in a tumultuous presidency, Rove said.

On top of the healthcare debacle, Trump came under fire for banning transgender people from the military, and was pilloried for politicizing a speech he made to the Boy Scouts.

Adding fuel to the fire, his new communications director Anthony Scaramucci unleashed a string of profane criticism about Priebus and Trump strategist Steven Bannon to a New Yorker magazine reporter.

Republicans welcomed Trumps decision to bring in Kelly, who starts on Monday.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

I think he will bring some order and discipline to the West Wing, said Republican Senator Susan Collins and Trump critic on NBCs Meet the Press.

The last week heightened concerns in Trumps party that the distractions and West Wing dysfunction would derail other legislative priorities, including tax reform and debt ceiling negotiations.

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said he thought Priebus had been effective but was probably a little bit more laid back in the way he ran the office.

I think the president wants to go in a different direction, wants a little bit more discipline, a little more structure in there, said Mulvaney, who reports to the chief of staff.

It is not yet clear whether all of Trumps senior staff will answer to Kelly. Some members, including Scaramucci and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, report directly to Trump, a structure which gives them more power.

I will do whatever the president and our new chief of staff General Kelly ask me to do, Conway told Fox News Fox News Sunday.

Kelly should be empowered to be the gatekeeper to the Oval Office, said Mike Huckabee, the former Republican governor of Arkansas, whose daughter Sarah Sanders is Trumps spokeswoman.

Thats what needs to happen, but thats going to be up to the president, Huckabee said on Fox News Sunday Morning Futures.

The president has a very different style, hes very open, the door is open, he invites people to just come on it to a meeting, Huckabee said.

To be effective, Kelly needs to find a way to work within Trumps untraditional style, said Corey Lewandowski, who was a former campaign manager to Trump, and remains close to the president.

The thing that General Kelly should do is not try to change Donald Trump, Lewandowski said on NBCs Meet the Press.

Ann Coulter doesnt appear to be dropping her crusade against Delta anytime soon, and now shes armed with alleged insider knowledge as to why her roomier seat was given to another passenger aboard a recent flight.

According to a text conversation Coulter posted to Twitter on Tuesday, an unnamed flight attendant claimed that Coulter was targeted on purpose to make her life miserable.

BEWARE OF @DELTA REPUBLICANS, Coulter captioned the Twitter photo of the text exchange. Texts from a flight attendant: It was political. @Delta still wont give a reason.

The text conversation in Coulters tweet appears to be taking place between a flight attendant and his/her friend, the latter of whom is inquiring into the circumstances that led to Coulters seating re-assignment.

[] someone at the Delta desk saw Anns name and picked it on purpose? Is there a randomizer when it comes to these situations?

No, someone noticed her, and just wanted to be a jerk and [sic] make her life miserable, responded the flight attendant.

Thats what I figured, remarked the friend.

Yeah, I said that on several secret FB groups of [XXX Airline] employees, they were all hating on Ann, and when I defended her, we went back & forth, wrote the flight attendant. And at the end, they acknowledged that it was a Delta employee who targeted Ann on purpose.

Coulter herself has not revealed the source of her information, or who exactly is doing the texting, but the conversations validity is already being called into question by Twitter users in the posts comments.

Coulters problems with Delta began on Saturday afternoon, after the roomy exit-row seat she reserved on her flight from New York to West Palm Beach, Fla., was given away to a fellow passenger without any explanation, compensation or apology, she claimed on Twitter. She also told her followers that Deltda was the worst airline in America, and tweeted out a photo of the passenger that would up taking her seat on the flight.

Delta initially addressed Coulters complaints on Sunday afternoon, tweeting that they would refund her the $30 she paid for her preferred seat, and blasting her for the unacceptable and unnecessary remarks about Deltas crew and passengers.

The airline also released a statement later that evening, in which it apologized for the seating situation, attributing it to a simple mix-up. Delta also wrote that it was disappointed that the customer has chosen to publicly attack our employees and other customers by posting derogatory and slanderous comments and photos in social media.

Coulter, however, claimed that Delta was lying so much during an appearance on Tuesdays edition of Fox and Friends, and reiterated that she has yet to hear an explanation or obtain an apology from the airline.

A representative for Delta Air Lines declined to comment on the matter any further.

Note From Paula: The Delta Desk Attendant Employee who did that should be FIRED and it seems to me that Delta Airlines condones this type of discriminating behavior from employees who lean left. That’s my opinion and I’m stickin’ to it! 🙂

A Nebraska Democratic Party official was removed from his post on Thursday after an audio recording surfaced of him saying he’s glad House Majority Whip Steve Scalise got shot last week.

Phil Montag, now-former co-chair of the state partys technology committee, was recorded saying he wishes Scalise, R-La., were dead.

His whole job is to get people, convince Republicans to [expletive] kick people off [expletive] health care. Im glad he got shot, Montag said in the audio recording. I wish he was [expletive] dead.

The audio was posted on YouTube. Nebraska Democratic Chairwoman Jane Kleeb confirmed to FOX 42 that the voice on the audio recording was, in fact, Montags.

We obviously condemn any kind of violence whether its comments on Facebook or comments in a meeting, Kleeb said. Our country is better than the political rhetoric that is out there from both the far right and the far left.

Montag, in an interview with the Omaha World-Herald, said his words were taken out of context and he was “horrified” by the shooting.

I did not call for the congressmans death, Montag reportedly said.

Kleeb removed Montag from his post just one week after Nebraska Democratic Black Caucus Chairwoman Chelsey Gentry-Tipton was asked to resign over a Facebook post about Scalise and the attack on Republicans. She did not.

Gentry-Tipton had posted in a thread about the shooting: ‘Watching the congressman crying on live tv abt the trauma they experienced. Y is this so funny tho?,’ the Omaha World-Herald reported.

Later, in the same thread, she reportedly stated, The very people that push pro NRA legislation in efforts to pad their pockets with complete disregard for human life. Yeah, having a hard time feeling bad for them.

The Russian lawyer who landed a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. during last years presidential campaign with the promise of dirt on Hillary Clinton had one big thing in common with the Democratic candidate: Both had opposed Russia sanctions targeting human-rights abusers.

Further, former Secretary of State Clintons initial opposition coincided with a $500,000 speech her husband gave in Moscow a link her 2016 campaign fought to downplay in the press, according to WikiLeaks-released documents.

Trump White House officials now are trying to draw attention to that speech and the Clintons ties to Russia in a bid to counter criticism over Trump Jr.s now-infamous meeting.

If you want to talk about having relationships with Russia, I’d look no further than the Clintons, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a briefing last week. Bill Clinton was paid half a million dollars to give a speech to a Russian bank, personally thanked by President Putin.

“With the help of the research team, we killed a Bloomberg story trying to link HRC’s opposition to the Magnitsky bill a $500,000 speech that WJC gave in Moscow.”

– May, 2015 email from Clinton campaign staffer

The former president indeed had received a personal call from then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin expressing his appreciation for the speech. According to Mrs. Clintons ethics disclosure form filed while she was secretary of State, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 by the Russia-based finance company Renaissance Capital for his June 29, 2010, speech in Moscow to its employees and guests attending the company’s annual conference.

The speech is now coming back to haunt the Clintons, considering the company that cut the check was allegedly tied to the scandal that spurred the Global Magnitsky Act, a bill that imposed sanctions on Russians designated as human-rights abusers and eventually would become law in 2012.

This was the same law Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya was lobbying against during her sit-down with Trump Jr. last year. And back in 2010, it would have put the Clintons on her side.

Shortly before Bill Clintons speech in 2010, when members of Congress pushing the sanctions bill had asked Hillary Clinton to refuse visas to Russian officials implicated under the policy, the State Department denied the request. The Obama administration initially was opposed to the Magnitsky Act because then-President Barack Obama was seeking a reset with Russia and did not want to deepen the divide between the two countries.

Former President Bill Clintons speech to Renaissance just weeks later was all the more curious, considering Renaissances Russian investment bank executives would have been banned from the U.S. under the law.

Fast-forward to 2015, and the timeline apparently had caught the attention of Bloomberg News.

According to a memo from Clintons presidential campaign team later published by WikiLeaks, however, the Clinton campaign was able to stop the presses.

With the help of the research team, we killed a Bloomberg story trying to link HRCs opposition to the Magnitsky bill a $500,000 speech that WJC gave in Moscow, Jesse Lehrich, on the Rapid Response Communications team for Hillary For America, boasted on May 21, 2015.

The Global Magnitsky Act was named for 36-year-old tax attorney Sergei Magnitsky, who died in the custody of the Russian government after accusing the government and organized crime of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a foreign company, Hermitage Capital Management. Magnitsky, hired by foreign investor and Hermitage owner William Browder, had tracked what turned out to be hundreds of millions of dollars in tax fraud. He reported the fraud to the Russian authorities, but instead of pursuing charges against the alleged offender, Russian authorities jailed Magnitsky.

After Magnitsky died in November 2009, Browder said Magnitsky proved Renaissance officials were among those orchestrating the scheme.

The State Department finally reversed its position in 2011 and refused visas to some Russians purportedly involved in the financial fraud seeking to enter the country.

The Magnitsky Act passed with bipartisan support in 2012.

Russia retaliated against the U.S., ending any possibility for Americans to adopt Russian orphans and also banning 18 U.S. officials from entering their country.

Malia Zimmerman is an award-winning investigative reporter focusing on crime, homeland security, illegal immigration crime, terrorism and political corruption. Follow her on twitter at @MaliaMZimmerman

At an appearance in England on Thursday, actor Johnny Depp joked about assassinating President Trump. He apologized on Friday for the shocking remarks.

Depp was at a drive-in movie theater in Glastonbury, where he introduced his 2004 film “The Libertine,” when he began talking about the president, according to The Guardian.

I think he needs help and there are a lot of wonderful dark, dark places he could go, Depp said.

Depp, who noted his comments would be in the press, then began discussing prior assassinations of presidents.

When was the last time an actor assassinated a president? he asked, referencing John Wilkes Booth assassinating President Abraham Lincoln in 1865.

I want to clarify, I am not an actor. I lie for a living, Depp said. However, it has been a while and maybe it is time.

A White House official told Fox News, “President Trump has condemned violence in all forms and its sad that others like Johnny Depp have not followed his lead. I hope that some of Mr. Depps colleagues will speak out against this type of rhetoric as strongly as they would if his comments were directed to a democrat elected official.”

A United States Secret Service Official also told Fox News, “The Secret Service is aware of the Mr. Depps comments. For operational security reasons, we do not discuss specifically or in general terms the means and methods of how we conduct our protective responsibilities.”

I apologize for the bad joke I attempted last night in poor taste about President Trump, he said. It did not come out as intended, and I intended no malice. I was only trying to amuse, not to harm anyone.

In recent weeks, a production of Julius Caesar in New York Citys Shakespeare in the Park sparked controversy when the play showed the Roman dictator, seemingly depicted as Trump, being brutally stabbed to death on stage.

Sponsors later pulled out of the event due to the graphic nature of the show.

Comedian Kathy Griffin also sparked controversy after a photo of her holding a bloodied Donald Trump mask was released to the public.

In a victory for the Trump administration, the Supreme Court on Monday lifted key components of an injunction against President Trump’s proposed ban on travel from six majority-Muslim nations, reinstating much of the policy and promising to hear full arguments as early as this fall.

The court’s decision means the justices will now wade into the biggest legal controversy of the Trump administration — the president’s order temporarily restricting travel, which even Trump has termed a “travel ban.” The court made clear that a limited version of the policy can be enforced for now.

“An American individual or entity that has a bona fide relationship with a particular person seeking to enter the country as a refugee can legitimately claim concrete hardship if that person is excluded, the court wrote. As to these individuals and entities, we do not disturb the injunction. But when it comes to refugees who lack any such connection to the United States, for the reasons we have set out, the balance tips in favor of the Governments compelling need to provide for the Nations security.

The justices decided to review the broader constitutional issues over executive authority on immigration with oral arguments to be held in the fall.

Trump has been incensed since his original executive order, signed on Jan. 27, was partially blocked by a federal court.

“What is our country coming to when a judge can halt a Homeland Security travel ban and anyone, even with bad intentions can come into U.S.?” Trump tweeted on Feb. 4.

He added on Feb. 11: “Our legal system is broken!”

In early March, Trump issued a revised executive order — which also had key provisions blocked by federal courts.

Trump has been spoiling for the Supreme Court to take up the case and eager to get it out of the hands of what he sees as more liberal appellate judges.

Four days after signing the original ban, Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated when Antonin Scalia died. Gorsuch, who has since been confirmed, is largely seen as a conservative, originalist justice in the Scalia mold and could help Trump claim an even more definitive victory after arguments.

The Government has made a strong showing that it is likely to succeed on the merits that is, that the judgments below will be reversed, an opinion on the ban filed by Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch said. The Government has also established that failure to stay the injunctions will cause irreparable harm by interfering with its compelling need to provide for the Nations security.

At issue is whether the temporary ban violates the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and 14th Amendments, and the ban on nationality discrimination in the issuance of immigrant visas contained in a 65-year-old congressional law.

The White House, on the other hand, frames the issue as a temporary move involving national security. A coalition of groups in opposition call the order blatant religious discrimination, since the six countries involved have mostly-Muslim populations: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

A major sticking point for the justices will be navigating how much discretion the president really has over immigration. Courts have historically been deferential in this area, and recent presidents dating back to Jimmy Carter have used their discretion to deny entry to certain refugees and diplomats — including those from nations such as Iran, Cuba and North Korea.

A 1952 federal law — the Immigration and Nationality Act, passed in the midst of a Cold War fear over Communist influence — historically gives the chief executive broad authority.

“Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may, may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary,” Section 212 (f) of the law states, “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

(CNN)Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein put out a very odd statement late Thursday night. He attacked anonymous sources and insisted that any story using them is rightly viewed extremely skeptically. I reached out to Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University and the author of Press Think, a blog about media and politics, for some perspective on the history of anonymous sourcing and what it means for the future of journalism. Our conversation, conducted via email and lightly edited for flow, is below.

Rosen: Caution is always advisable toward stories based on anonymous sources. Yes. Even the people who produce these stories would probably agree with that. But if Rod Rosenstein wanted to warn us away from a report he knew to be misleading, his statement fails. It suffers from the same vagueness of origin that casts doubt on the statements of confidential sources.

Which revelations is Rosenstein talking about? What is the predicate for his actions in releasing this statement? What is that phrase, “when they do not identify the country…” doing in there? He seems to want to say more, but something prevents him. Or maybe he wanted to say less, but someone forced him. Either way, his statement is opaque. Which is the whole problem with confidential sources. They are opaque.

Cillizza: Let’s take a step back. What is the history of anonymous sources? Where did this all start?

Rosen: I don’t think we know for sure. One of the oldest dynamics in politics reaching back to the 18th century Parliaments is when the loser in an internal conflict decides to “change the game” by going public with a dispute that had previously been kept in house. Since they still have to live in that house, these people tend to be anonymous. This method in political combat first became possible when there were printed journals reporting on Parliament, and coffee houses where public questions were being debated assisted, of course, by the newspapers of the day, on sale in those establishments.

Roughly speaking, then, the origins of anonymous sourcing, the birth of public opinion as a live factor in politics, and the invention of political reporting all occur together, in the mid 1700s. And that dynamic I identified loser in an internal dispute goes public, hoping that the reaction will change the outcome continues unchanged to this day.

Cillizza: Is anonymous sourcing on the rise?

Rosen: I would be cautious about any statement like that. That would take a massive content study to determine with any reliability. Such studies are done, but they tend to lag 5-7 years behind the fact.

One thing we can point to is the rise of publications Politico, Business Insider, Axios would be three that in my view simply don’t care how often they have to rely on blind sources. They have made the call that getting the inside dope is more important to their readers than any fussy concerns about transparency. They have decided not to worry about it. In fact, Henry Blodget, founder of Business Insider, has said, “We will grant anonymity to any source at any time for any reason.” Pretty clear statement. The existence of such competitors obviously has an effect on the climate as a whole.

Cillizza: President Obama’s White House was notoriously hard on leakers. Trump seems to have taken that to a new level. Accurate reading?

Rosen: It’s well established that Obama was more aggressive against leakers than any previous president. Judging by his public statements, Trump is even more willing to go to war, but I don’t think we know what is going on behind the scenes. The first criminal case against a leaker began this month. It’s plausible to suspect that a lot is happening on this front, but we simply don’t know enough to say for sure.

Cillizza: Finish this sentence: “Anonymous sources are _________ in modern journalism.”

Rosen: “Anonymous sources are withdrawals against the bank balance built up by more transparent practices in modern journalism.”

News accounts that rely on confidential sources do not contain within themselves the information required for us to trust them. By definition we cannot “go to the source” because the source is hidden. If we extend our trust to such reports, we do so because of reputation: the reporter’s reputation, or more often the news brand’s.

Some acts of journalism are easier to trust than others. If I tell you what the data shows about test scores in different schools around your district, and I also link to the data so you can check for yourself, that is a fundamentally different act from… “The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.” (My italics.)

That term, “officials said” is relatively hard to trust. We can’t go to those people and ask: did you really say that? We can’t decide how credible they are, and act accordingly. Instead we have to trust the Washington Post, which gave us this report, and its reporters. It might be rational to do so, but it’s also subtractive. We are drawing on reserves of trust built up by previous acts of journalism that told us the Post could be trusted. Some acts of reporting add to the bank account, others draw upon reserves of trust. To put it another way, when trust is the currency, stories that depend on anonymous sources are expensive.